Topic: Ben Carson

On the occasion of its tenth anniversary in 2006, Slate invited some of its critics to temper the “self-congratulation” with some humbling criticism. Jonah Goldberg’s contribution was to knock Slate for turning its own penchant for contrarianism into a caricature. “Contrarianness is a great and good thing—when driven by reason and facts. But contrarianness for its own sake is often the very definition of asininity.” Unfortunately, this description soon became apt for a certain archetype of Republican presidential candidate as well–a role currently filled by the increasingly absurd Ben Carson.

On the occasion of its tenth anniversary in 2006, Slate invited some of its critics to temper the “self-congratulation” with some humbling criticism. Jonah Goldberg’s contribution was to knock Slate for turning its own penchant for contrarianism into a caricature. “Contrarianness is a great and good thing—when driven by reason and facts. But contrarianness for its own sake is often the very definition of asininity.” Unfortunately, this description soon became apt for a certain archetype of Republican presidential candidate as well–a role currently filled by the increasingly absurd Ben Carson.

Here are three things that are true: Washington D.C. is a bubble; the mainstream media is biased against conservatives; and the political class is often too far removed from the ethos of the private sector. And so, conservatives have an admirable and instinctive attraction to “outsiders.” In part, this is because they are; conservatism is the American counterculture. So outsiderism is often a breath of fresh air. But outsiderism for its own sake seems to lead too many conservatives to abandon the very critical thinking that makes their conservatism so valuable in the first place. And candidates like Carson take advantage of that.

Carson has, in the past, made extreme comments. His points of comparison for modern liberal big-government policies have included slavery and Nazism. And yesterday, speaking at the Republican retreat, he had this to say about America’s founders and the current crop of terrorist organizations waging war against the West:

“A bunch of rag tag militiamen defeated the most powerful and professional military force on the planet. Why? Because they believed in what they were doing. They were willing to die for what they believed in,” Carson told a luncheon audience of national committee members. “Fast forward to today. What do we have? You’ve got ISIS. They’ve got the wrong philosophy, but they’re willing to die for it while we are busily giving away every belief and every value for the sake of political correctness. We have to change that.”

Carson then preemptively criticized the press, whom he said would seize on the comments.

The last sentence there is as important to the story as the controversial comments themselves. Carson not only makes extreme statements; he says them knowing they’ll be considered extreme and believes this is its own form of validation.

Carson, true to form, starts out with something that is true: political correctness is eroding the West’s respect for its own identity. Then he says something insane, by comparing our own political correctness unfavorably to ISIS, which enforces a much stricter political correctness by cutting off people’s heads. Carson then completes the formula by pretending that the backlash to his comments proves his point.

The problem here is that Carson and his supporters, in the quest to puncture the D.C. media bubble, have created a situation just as problematic. In Carson’s world, the more criticism he receives the greater the righteousness of his declarations. There appears to be no way to break this loop.

It’s that very penchant — for frank and often controversial comments — that has made him so popular with the GOP base, and turned the retired neurosurgeon into a rising conservative star who just last month polled third in a CNN/ORC survey of the potential GOP presidential field.

I don’t know if the first contention is true. It sounds right, but any statement on why conservatives support a candidate for president should have more to it than equating correlation with causation. As for Carson’s own polling, I don’t think it’ll hold up. I wish I could say that’s because his views will be recognized as amateurish demagoguery. But more likely it’s because of the quality of the prospective 2016 field.

In 2012, the volatile GOP nominating race was appropriately dubbed the “bubble primary” by ABC News. Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich all spent time getting a sudden boost of support as the “not-Romney” candidate. Early in the race, some viewed Tim Pawlenty as the one to watch; others thought Michele Bachmann was being vastly underestimated; still others wanted Chris Christie to jump into the race. Before the election got underway, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (who didn’t end up running) and Jon Huntsman were the ones who scared many Democrats the most.

These posts used to include a statement along the lines of “with the caveat that we don’t know who will actually be running…” but we know much more about the field now. Jeb Bush and Rand Paul are in. Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, and Bobby Jindal are not too far behind. And Marco Rubio, Mike Pence, Rick Santorum, and even Mitt Romney are obviously strongly considering it. This is not a field in which boomlets are likely to fall into people’s laps; they will have to be earned.

The quality of the field is an obstacle for Ben Carson, who wouldn’t have been nominated even in 2012 and stands less of a chance in 2016. And the grassroots conservatism of many of the candidates this time around undercuts the idea that he’ll be kept out by fearful insiders. Outsiderism for the sake of outsiderism won’t win in 2016, but that doesn’t mean an outsider won’t.

Those who have seen the effect Dr. Ben Carson’s rants against liberalism can have on members of the conservative base were not surprised by the results of the latest CNN poll on preferences for the Republican presidential nomination. The survey showed Mitt Romney with the most support of any Republican despite his repeated vows never to run again. But leading the rest of the pack of presidential hopefuls was Dr. Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has become the leading outlier in a wide-open race that is tempting a wide array of unlikely figures to make noises about running. That’s exactly the sort of result that can help jump-start Carson’s boomlet as we head into the preliminary part of the long 2016 campaign. But while Carson’s charisma should not be underestimated, those anointing him as the first “frontrunner” in this marathon are clearly jumping to conclusions that won’t be backed up by subsequent events.

Those who have seen the effect Dr. Ben Carson’s rants against liberalism can have on members of the conservative base were not surprised by the results of the latest CNN poll on preferences for the Republican presidential nomination. The survey showed Mitt Romney with the most support of any Republican despite his repeated vows never to run again. But leading the rest of the pack of presidential hopefuls was Dr. Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has become the leading outlier in a wide-open race that is tempting a wide array of unlikely figures to make noises about running. That’s exactly the sort of result that can help jump-start Carson’s boomlet as we head into the preliminary part of the long 2016 campaign. But while Carson’s charisma should not be underestimated, those anointing him as the first “frontrunner” in this marathon are clearly jumping to conclusions that won’t be backed up by subsequent events.

Carson has an inspiring biography and impressive medical credentials. He’s also articulate and has a knack for taking complex issues and boiling them down to simple talking points, a skill that any good politician must possess. Moreover, in a political environment in which both parties are deeply unpopular and those associated with Washington in any capacity are easily branded as being members of an out-of-touch establishment, the argument for nominating an outsider can’t be dismissed. That’s why Carson, whose rants on Fox News (until the first rumblings of his putative presidential campaign caused the network to end his contract as a contributor on the network) and elsewhere make him seem like a seductive choice for some conservatives.

Just as it seemed as if every candidate who ran for the 2012 GOP nomination had a moment on top of the polls, this first indication of Carson’s popularity makes him the flavor of the month even before anyone has declared as a candidate. And with so many seemingly more serious candidates in the mix with none having the kind of clear advantage that Romney had entering the 2012 race, it’s hard to fault other would-be outliers like former governors George Pataki and Bob Ehrlich or former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina for testing the waters. None of these figures are remotely credible candidates, especially when compared to potential first-tier Republicans like Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, John Kasich, Bobby Jindal, and others. But the fact that so many serious candidates are likely to run, it is possible to imagine an outlier with just the right sort of appeal doing far better than anyone expects.

In his time on Fox, Carson proved that he was adept at rousing the rabble and making incendiary statements that garnered him applause on the hard right. That alone should stand him in good stead when forced to go toe-to-toe with gubernatorial and senate heavyweights.

But while Republicans may like someone who can talk a good game, the notion that the GOP will embrace someone with zero political or governing experience after spending the last eight years pointing out that Barack Obama’s inexperience (though his thin political resume was still greater than that of Carson) seems far-fetched. Even more important, as our Pete Wehner has pointed out, Carson’s catalogue of outrageous statements renders him not merely unqualified for the presidency but almost certainly unelectable.

Another problem is that Carson appears to take himself very seriously in a way that is bound to cramp his style once he starts beating the bushes in Iowa and New Hampshire. On Meet the Press last Sunday, Carson coyly answered “maybe” when Chuck Todd asked him about running. But his restrained comments about the Ferguson controversy on the show prior to making that statement illustrated what happens when outliers start to think they have a real shot at winning. Carson may now think he has to sound more presidential but the moment he stops becoming a sound-bite machine and starts talking more like a normal politician who understands he will be held accountable for everything he says, he’s in trouble. Judging by that exchange, Carson’s presidential push may end a lot sooner than his good poll numbers would lead you to think.

There’s a strange asymmetry to the 2016 presidential primary polls. For the Democrats, the polls actually matter, or at least tell us something important. Hillary Clinton’s dominance over her rivals has led to some recalling the “inevitability” narrative in 2008 that was, of course, shattered by Barack Obama. But the polls that showed Clinton ahead in those days weren’t as lopsided, and the path wasn’t quite so clear. It’s true that there’s no such thing as a sure thing, but Clinton’s chances of cruising to the nomination are much better this time around.

There’s a strange asymmetry to the 2016 presidential primary polls. For the Democrats, the polls actually matter, or at least tell us something important. Hillary Clinton’s dominance over her rivals has led to some recalling the “inevitability” narrative in 2008 that was, of course, shattered by Barack Obama. But the polls that showed Clinton ahead in those days weren’t as lopsided, and the path wasn’t quite so clear. It’s true that there’s no such thing as a sure thing, but Clinton’s chances of cruising to the nomination are much better this time around.

Additionally, the polls tell us something else: Democratic voters are not interested in nominating Joe Biden. That’s significant this time if only because he’s the sitting vice president, and therefore has some claim to be next in line. It also means he has high name recognition, which is the key to leading such early polls. (Although it’s worth pointing out that if this Jimmy Kimmel man-on-the-street experiment is any indication, Biden has lower name recognition than you might otherwise think.)

Name recognition, in fact, is basically both the question and answer to deciphering such early polls. So while it’s the reason polls showing Clinton in the lead are worth paying attention to, it’s simultaneously the reason polls of the Republican side of the equation are meaningless. The latest ABC News/Washington Postpoll makes this point pretty clearly:

Hillary Clinton continues to hold a commanding lead in the potential Democratic field for president in 2016, while the GOP frontrunner in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll is a familiar figure – but one not favored by eight in 10 potential Republican voters.

That would be Mitt Romney, supported for the GOP nomination by 21 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. That’s double the support of his closest potential rival, but it also leaves 79 percent who prefer one of 13 other possible candidates tested, or none of them.

But what happens when you remove Romney’s name from contention and ask his supporters the same question? This:

When Romney is excluded from the race, his supporters scatter, adding no clarity to the GOP free-for-all. In that scenario former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul have 12 or 13 percent support from leaned Republicans who are registered to vote. All others have support in the single digits.

Take this summer poll from Gallup on the public’s familiarity with 2016 candidates. The only two Republicans to crack 60 percent were Chris Christie and Jeb Bush. … If he wins reelection in Wisconsin, Scott Walker would be considered among the GOP’s strongest candidates (on paper at least, which is all we have so far for the newbies). … Yet Gallup found Walker with the lowest familiarity of any of the GOP candidates, at just 34 percent.

Similarly, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal–the human résumé–was at just 38 percent. Huckabee was at 54 percent, higher than previous candidate Rick Santorum (but lower than Rick Perry) as well as all the non-previous candidates except Christie, Jeb Bush, and Rand Paul, who was at 55 percent. Huckabee also tied Christie for the highest favorability rating in that poll.

Now look at the new ABC/WaPo poll. There’s Huckabee, along with Jeb Bush and Rand Paul plus Romney at the top. Name recognition still roughly determines the outline of the race.

And that brings up another reason these polls aren’t much help: the actual makeup of the field when the primaries get under way. It’s doubtful Romney will run again. Huckabee is far from a sure thing to run again. Jeb Bush is probably more likely than not to pass as well, considering the fact that Christie still appears to be running and so does Bush’s fellow Floridian Marco Rubio.

Yet according to the ABC/WaPo poll, the top three vote getters on the GOP side are … Romney, Bush, and Huckabee. The pollsters took Romney out of the lineup to get a better sense of where Romney’s support was coming from (leaving Bush and Huckabee still in the top three), but they might have done better taking all three out of an additional question and seeing where the field would be without them. Rand Paul is the top voter-getter among those who either haven’t previously run for president or whose last name isn’t Bush.

After that, it gets more interesting–but not by much. Paul Ryan is a popular choice, but that’s name recognition as well since he ran on the 2012 national ticket. He also doesn’t seem all that enthusiastic about a run for president. If he doesn’t run, that means there’s a good chance three of the top four vote getters in the Romney-free version of the poll aren’t running, leaving Romney’s supporters without any of their favored candidates except Rand Paul.

Here’s another such poll, this one of Iowa voters from last week. The top two choices are Romney and Ben Carson, followed by Paul, Huckabee, and Ryan. Perhaps Romney really is running and Carson is a strong sleeper pick. But I doubt it on both counts. I also doubt Romney would win Iowa even if he ran, no matter what the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll says.

This is an indication of how wide-open the race is on the GOP side. But not much else. And the polls should be treated that way.

Via Mediaite, Dr. Ben Carson–a best-selling author and Fox News contributor who’s hinting he might run for president in 2016–is once again comparing the United States to Nazi Germany.

Having previously said America is “very much like Nazi Germany,” Dr. Carson was asked about this by the Washington Post. Does he regret the comparison? The answer: No.

“You can’t dance around it,” he told the Post. “If people look at what I said and were not political about it, they’d have to agree. Most people in Germany didn’t agree with what Hitler was doing…. Exactly the same thing can happen in this country if we are not willing to stand up for what we believe in.”

So does Dr. Carson really believe that dispassionate people “have to agree” with him that America today is “very much like Nazi Germany”? This claim, having been stated and re-stated, is what you’d expect from a disoriented mind.

Just for the record, according to the widely respected Freedom House, on a scale of one to seven–with one being the best rating–the U.S. earned the highest rating possible in the three areas Freedom House examines: freedom status, political rights, and civil rights. So far from being very much like one of the most tyrannical and malignant regimes in human history, America is one of the freest nations on earth. Not perfect for sure; but not Nazi Germany, either.

None of this means, of course, that some things President Obama has done aren’t quite problematic. They are; and many of us have written repeatedly about them. Still, Dr. Carson’s rhetoric is unhinged. If he really believes what he says–if he can’t distinguish between Germany under Hitler and America under Obama–he’s not to be taken seriously. It would mean his sense of reality is massively distorted, that he’s living in a world of make-believe. And if he doesn’t believe what he says but is simply saying it to win the hearts of some on the right, he’s unusually irresponsible and cynical.

From my vantage point Dr. Carson seems to be trying to appeal to, and perhaps has had his attitudes influenced by, people on the right who routinely toss around words like “tyranny” and “police state” to describe America. There seems to be a competition in some circles to see who can employ the most extreme language to characterize America during the Obama years. This is a mirror image of what the left did in the 1960s and 1970s. Now it’s some on the right who employ this slander.

What we’re seeing is a species of Obama Derangement Syndrome. (Liberals suffered from Bush Derangement Syndrome in the previous decade.) It’s what sometimes happens when those belonging to a political party/movement become enraged by the actions of a president who is from the other party. Their rhetoric spins utterly out of control. In doing so, they discredit themselves and the movement they purport to represent.

My post on when the right turns on America provoked some reactions, most of them favorable but a few of them critical. I want to deal with two of the disapproving ones–the first a brief criticism on Twitter by National Review’s Kevin D. Williamson and the second a longer, private criticism written to me by a friend.

Let me deal with them in order, beginning with this tweet by Mr. Williamson:

We aren’t turning on America, ‪@Peter_Wehner. We’re turning on the federal government, as we should be.

Mr. Williamson is confusing a few things. My argument isn’t that there aren’t reasons to be critical of the federal government or the Obama administration. I’ve made those criticisms repeatedly, as well as offering up my thoughts for how we can re-limit and reform the federal government. So if Williamson is simply saying there are reasons to denigrate the federal government, count me in.

But of course my post didn’t have to do with criticisms of the federal government per se; it had to do with the rhetoric some on the right now employ. I quoted, for example, Dr. Ben Carson, who said, America is “very much like Nazi Germany.”

That is not simply “turning on the federal government”; that is a statement that is unmoored from reality and a slander against America. If Mr. Williamson agrees that the United States today is, with a quibble here and there, Nazi Germany all over again, he should make that argument in a comprehensive manner. It would be revealing to hear him make the case for why the United States is similar to one of the most malevolent regimes in history. Hopefully Williamson doesn’t agree with Dr. Carson, in which case I believe he agrees with me.

My post on when the right turns on America provoked some reactions, most of them favorable but a few of them critical. I want to deal with two of the disapproving ones–the first a brief criticism on Twitter by National Review’s Kevin D. Williamson and the second a longer, private criticism written to me by a friend.

Let me deal with them in order, beginning with this tweet by Mr. Williamson:

We aren’t turning on America, ‪@Peter_Wehner. We’re turning on the federal government, as we should be.

Mr. Williamson is confusing a few things. My argument isn’t that there aren’t reasons to be critical of the federal government or the Obama administration. I’ve made those criticisms repeatedly, as well as offering up my thoughts for how we can re-limit and reform the federal government. So if Williamson is simply saying there are reasons to denigrate the federal government, count me in.

But of course my post didn’t have to do with criticisms of the federal government per se; it had to do with the rhetoric some on the right now employ. I quoted, for example, Dr. Ben Carson, who said, America is “very much like Nazi Germany.”

That is not simply “turning on the federal government”; that is a statement that is unmoored from reality and a slander against America. If Mr. Williamson agrees that the United States today is, with a quibble here and there, Nazi Germany all over again, he should make that argument in a comprehensive manner. It would be revealing to hear him make the case for why the United States is similar to one of the most malevolent regimes in history. Hopefully Williamson doesn’t agree with Dr. Carson, in which case I believe he agrees with me.

Now let me turn to a more substantial note I received from a friend, who wrote this:

Are you sure about this? I remember the attacks of the Left; they were that the very idea of America, its own ideals, were corrupt and irredeemable. This critique, perhaps lacking in sophistication, seems to derive from their perception that we are, transiently, failing our ideals. One attack was on fundamental principle, the other seems more situational, calling us back. Perhaps ham-handedly. But do you see no difference?

This statement is a fair one, at least up to a point. Over the years some on the left have vilified the founders, while those on the right (myself included) have tended to lionize them. So to be precise: some on the right are saying we used be good but now we’re evil. That is different than saying we have been evil from the start. But it is not much less divorced from reality or hardly less pernicious. It looks for the impossible ideal in the past rather than in the future, but it still disparages the actual living, breathing America.

I’d add that my friend–intelligent, well-educated, and a person of good will–could only say that the rhetoric I cited in my post was “perhaps” lacking in sophistication and “perhaps” ham-handed.

“Perhaps”?

It is more than unsophisticated and ham-handed; it is a grotesque libel. Yet it happens frequently enough that it hardly elicits a critical reaction. Are we now to the point where conservatives who depict America as a replica of Hitler’s Germany, a police state, a borderline tyranny, and a dystopian society are viewed as having made slight if understandable overstatements? I for one hope not.

In this context it’s worth people reading, or re-reading, Norman Podhoretz’s My Love Affair With America, a book that expresses his deep affection for his native land. In it he urges his fellow conservatives to rediscover their faith in America. It is, among other things, an act of gratitude, one of the most important if overlooked human qualities.

Near the end of his elegant and touching book Podhoretz writes that the United States is entitled to

a place among the very greatest of human societies. And even more surely, it entitles this country to the love and gratitude of all whom a benevolent providence has deposited on the shores of – yes, a thousand times yes – “the land of the free and the home of the brave” to live their lives and make their livings under the sublime beauty of its “spacious skies” and “from sea to shining sea.”

This spirit of love and gratitude for America, even (and sometimes especially) in difficult times, is worth reclaiming. Because America, whatever its shortcomings, surely deserves it.

Speaking to the National Rifle Association’s recent annual conference, NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre, in describing America, said, “Almost everywhere you look, something has gone wrong. You feel it in your heart, you know it in your gut. Something has gone wrong. The core values we believe in, the things we care about most, are changing. Eroding. Our right to speak. Our right to gather. Our right to privacy. The freedom to work, and practice our religion, and raise and protect our families the way we see fit.”

He went on to say this:

There are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and carjackers and knockout gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all. I ask you. Do you trust this government to protect you? We are on our own.

Mr. LaPierre is not the only one who describes America in dystopian terms these days. Earlier this year Dr. Ben Carson, a Tea Party favorite who is considering a run for the presidency in 2016, said America is “very much like Nazi Germany.” Michele Bachmann, a 2012 GOP presidential candidate, has said the Affordable Care Act is evidence of a “police state.” This kind of language–America is bordering on or has basically become a tyranny–is common currency within some quarters of conservatism.

Now it is one thing to believe, as I do, that in some important respects America is in decline and that President Obama is in part responsible for that decline. I agree, too, that there are some alarming problems and trends facing the United States just now, which many conservatives are attempting to address in a responsible fashion.

Speaking to the National Rifle Association’s recent annual conference, NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre, in describing America, said, “Almost everywhere you look, something has gone wrong. You feel it in your heart, you know it in your gut. Something has gone wrong. The core values we believe in, the things we care about most, are changing. Eroding. Our right to speak. Our right to gather. Our right to privacy. The freedom to work, and practice our religion, and raise and protect our families the way we see fit.”

He went on to say this:

There are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and carjackers and knockout gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all. I ask you. Do you trust this government to protect you? We are on our own.

Mr. LaPierre is not the only one who describes America in dystopian terms these days. Earlier this year Dr. Ben Carson, a Tea Party favorite who is considering a run for the presidency in 2016, said America is “very much like Nazi Germany.” Michele Bachmann, a 2012 GOP presidential candidate, has said the Affordable Care Act is evidence of a “police state.” This kind of language–America is bordering on or has basically become a tyranny–is common currency within some quarters of conservatism.

Now it is one thing to believe, as I do, that in some important respects America is in decline and that President Obama is in part responsible for that decline. I agree, too, that there are some alarming problems and trends facing the United States just now, which many conservatives are attempting to address in a responsible fashion.

But it is quite another thing to describe America as the New Left did in the late 1960s, when America itself was spelled with a “k” (“Amerika”) in an effort to identify it with Nazi Germany. Among the young and left-wing academics there was talk about the need for revolution. The United States was viewed as fundamentally corrupt. Once upon a time conservatives fought against this. Today, however, some on the right are turning on America. They employ language you would associate with Noam Chomsky.

Now to be sure, the reasons the left and right are unhappy with America are quite different. But the indictment is still searing and often reckless. It describes an unrecognizable country. Whatever problems America has, we are light years away from Nazi Germany; and to argue that the United States is on the edge of tyranny can only come from those who don’t understand what life in a tyranny is really and truly and hellishly like.

This kind of rhetoric, which can only incite and never persuade, is alienating to everyone who is not part of the Apocalypse Now crowd. It is also, in deep ways, profoundly unconservative, in good part because it is overwrought and detached from reality. It is also evidence of a backward-looking conservatism that sees how America has changed and laments it rather than a forward-looking conservatism that sees the great promise and opportunities that still exist in America and seeks to take advantage of them.

“Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy?” the late, great United States Senator (and United Nations Ambassador) Daniel Patrick Moynihan once asked. “Not one bit. Find me a better one. Do I suppose there are societies which are free of sin? No, I don’t. Do I think ours is, on balance, incomparably the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do.”

That is still the case, even today, even in Barack Obama’s America. Conservatives should continue to oppose his agenda with all their might. But they will do serious and lasting damage to themselves and their cause if in the process they are seen as turning on their country. And I worry that in some quarters, from some voices, that is precisely what is happening.

Amor Patriae is still a virtue in America, and conservatives should both claim it and cherish the deeper meaning of it.

The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes, an outstanding political reporter over the decades, writes this in a story about Ben Carson:

“Over the years, there have been many attempts to get me to throw my hat in the political arena,” Carson writes in his new book, One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America’s Future. “I have been offered support from around the country and tremendous financial resources if I decide to run for national office. But I have not felt the call to run.”

Carson writes that he suspects many others interested in high office would be better candidates. But in his book he has a caveat: “If I felt called by God to officially enter the world of politics, I would certainly not hesitate to do so.”

Interviewed this week, Carson said he’s “starting to feel it. Because every place I go, it’s unbelievable.” One lady “really touched me the other night … She just kept clinging to my hand and said, ‘You have to run. You have to run.’ And so many people tell me that, and so I think I’m starting to hear something.”

Dr. Carson, a renowned neurosurgeon, is by all accounts an admirable person and a man of faith. (He was the subject of the movie Gifted Hands.) I have my doubts that he should run for president and I’m certain he won’t be nominated to be president, but for the purposes of this post I want to focus on his theology.

The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes, an outstanding political reporter over the decades, writes this in a story about Ben Carson:

“Over the years, there have been many attempts to get me to throw my hat in the political arena,” Carson writes in his new book, One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America’s Future. “I have been offered support from around the country and tremendous financial resources if I decide to run for national office. But I have not felt the call to run.”

Carson writes that he suspects many others interested in high office would be better candidates. But in his book he has a caveat: “If I felt called by God to officially enter the world of politics, I would certainly not hesitate to do so.”

Interviewed this week, Carson said he’s “starting to feel it. Because every place I go, it’s unbelievable.” One lady “really touched me the other night … She just kept clinging to my hand and said, ‘You have to run. You have to run.’ And so many people tell me that, and so I think I’m starting to hear something.”

Dr. Carson, a renowned neurosurgeon, is by all accounts an admirable person and a man of faith. (He was the subject of the movie Gifted Hands.) I have my doubts that he should run for president and I’m certain he won’t be nominated to be president, but for the purposes of this post I want to focus on his theology.

My own view is that to discern the call of God on matters like this requires extraordinary discernment. What makes this even more complicated is that there is a constant temptation among people of faith to take worldly ambitions and place upon them the imprimatur of God; to turn selfish (though not necessarily bad) desires and give to them the patina of holiness and selfless obedience. That at least has been true for me.

Politicians in particular are susceptible to a variation of this, often speaking as if their quest for power is done solely for altruistic reasons. They have a comfortable life they thoroughly enjoy, this narrative goes, but they just happen to be the one person in a nation of 315 million who can right the listing ship of state. Like most of what we do, however, running for public office usually involves a mix of factors, some more admirable than others. Running for president involves both personal sacrifices and personal aggrandizement. The distortion comes by focusing only on the former and never the latter; by pretending it’s always about us (or the will of God) and never about them.

It’s impossible for me to speak dispositively on this subject when it comes to Dr. Carson. But as a general matter, I would caution against confusing the words of enraptured supporters as Vox Dei, of taking ego strokes and making them synonymous with the call of God. Certainly for those of the Christian faith like Dr. Carson, a much more common (and good deal less comfortable) theme is dying to self, the least among us being the greatest, and taking up your cross. The wisest people I know would tend to warn that the adoration of the crowd is a temptation one needs to guard against. Sic transit gloria mundi.

I’m familiar with the parable of the talents and I’m certainly open to the prospect that God can take our gifts and interests and use them for good. My point is that we moderns tend to be somewhat less alert to the dangers of self-deception and (wittingly or not) using faith as a way to disguise our vanity.

The human heart is divided against itself; as a result, most of us are far too quick to ascribe to our less-than-saintly ambitions the full favor of God.